


A Thousand-One Stories

by SkyFireForever



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Amnesia, Family, Minor Character Death, Multi, Other, Trans Male Character, trans jonny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26851606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyFireForever/pseuds/SkyFireForever
Summary: Written for the mechtober prompt “Family”Jonny d’Ville had no family.
Relationships: Jonny d'Ville/The Mechanisms Ensemble, The Mechanisms Ensemble/The Mechanisms Ensemble
Comments: 6
Kudos: 76





	A Thousand-One Stories

**Author's Note:**

> This is really shitty. Do not judge me too harshly. I have no idea if any of this could be canon or whatever, but I do not care. Title taken from the lyric "I've got a thousand one stories, each and every one of them's a lie" from I Don't Know from Ghost Quartet.

Jonny’s backstory was pretty cut and dry. He grew up in New Texas, had a father that had a gambling debt, and shot him for some guy named Jack before killing him too. It was simple. Everything was simple. 

Or at least, that’s what Jonny would have people believe.

The complications were just too complicated. 

Who cared that he could barely remember shit about his past? 

Who cared that all he had left of his family were bits and pieces, distant flashes of memory?

It didn’t matter. 

That was the past and it should stay in the past. 

As far as Jonny was concerned, he was an orphan. That was all that mattered. 

Sometimes, if he tried hard enough, he could hear a woman’s voice singing to him. 

Other times, he could hear a stern voice lecturing him. 

But it didn’t matter. 

Jonny d’Ville didn’t need a family. He was a self-made man in more ways than one. He controlled his own past, present, and future. 

If he wanted to make up some bullshit backstory about some guy named Jack, then he would. It was no one’s business what his real backstory was, least of all his own. 

But some nights, when he’s struggling to fall asleep, he hears that soft voice singing a lullaby. He can’t make out the words, but he knows the tune like the back of his hand. 

He finds himself humming it sometimes when he thinks the other members of the crew can’t hear. They do, but they don’t mention it. 

Jonny sometimes remembers a name that is not his own being spoken by this voice. A name that makes him want to recoil and hide away. A name that he thinks never truly belonged to him. But it sounds so sweet coming from that voice. 

One night, when he was fast asleep, an image of a woman came to him. A woman with dark hair and darker eyes. She was beautiful. She was singing that lullaby, but he still couldn’t hear the words. But she smiled at him, sewing together a pair of pants. 

And suddenly the scene shifted, contorted, and the woman was lying dead on the floor, a man holding a smoking gun above her. The man turned to look at Jonny and the eyes that bore into him were identical to his own.

Jonny woke up in a sweat, the cry of “mom” against his lips. He was shaking and shivering, the other mechanisms fast asleep around him. He took a deep breath and settled back down, reminding himself that it was a dream. It was just a dream.

Jonny d’Ville had no mother. 

He  _ had  _ killed his father, though. Of that, he was almost certain. 

He didn’t know why. Or what had brought it about. But he had killed him. 

He remembered holding the gun with a shaking hand, remembered dropping it and falling to his knees. He remembered apologizing. 

_ “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. She told me-”  _

_ “I forgive you, son.”  _

And that was it. 

That was all that was left of Jonny’s family. 

He couldn’t remember a single other thing about them. 

He wasn’t even sure if those memories were real. 

It didn’t matter anyway. 

Jonny d’Ville had no family. 

Doctor Carmilla called him her child, but he refused to acknowledge her when she did that. She wasn’t his mother. 

Jonny d’Ville had no mother. 

But over time, he did come to gain a family. 

It was messy and cluttered and absolutely annoying, but it was something resembling a family that Jonny had never known. 

There was the Toy Soldier and Brian, who cooked fantastic meals for everyone. There was Ivy, who lectured them and gave them the knowledge that they needed. There was Marius, who kept their spirits light. There was Raphaella, who transed their genders and made sure they took their medicine. There was Tim, who was obnoxious in all ways, but who made Jonny feel a certain way. There was Ashes who gave good life advice and who always listened. And there was Nastya, who served no purpose other than to be gay and annoying.

But Jonny loved them all. And perhaps he could make new memories with a family that mattered. 


End file.
